Viva la Resistance!
Hogan, Hero of the Resistance, has triumphed over Sodaving, Kayazy overlord of Leryn!
With a little help from his friends, of course!
This weeks IKRPG game on Tuesday ( I know I’m late, its been crazy), Finally pitted the adventurers against Sodaving and his personal guards. Though the fight was quick, with Sodaving going down quickly, there was no lack of danger to our intrepid hero.
After being hauled up and over the edge of the culvert in which we had followed our friend Sev and having dispersed the pistol wraiths, we found Koldun Lord Lazar and his right and left hand ladies in charge of a fairly empty area. Sodaving and his lackeys were firmly under watch. It also turned out our employer, Niccoli, had fooled Lazar into believing he was the world famous Reinholdt, and was advising him. Lazar questioned who we were and what was going on. We informed him that we were wrongly accused prisoners of Sodaving, forced to fight for his pleasure while he was feeding information to the Golden Crucible rebels. To convince him, I produced a map that I had found before ever entering Leryn, and told him that Sodaving had given it to us, thinking that we were Golden Crucible allies, and was therefore working against Khadoran interest in Laele
I’m going to interrupt myself here, as this is a point of the story I am none too proud of. I like bringing down the bad guy, and I like doing it clean. Playing an honest thief/alchemist/spy has been a challenge, and its one of the parts of the game I have enjoyed the most. That I felt there was no real, legitimate, in-game way to take out the big dude without framing him for something he didn’t do, feels so out of character, and it will haunt Jerek for a long time. With no real evidence, and only lies, was there actually anything Sodaving was doing that we could have, if we tried harder, found to bring him down? I’m not sure, and I’ll never know. Sodaving is dead, Leryn is under Menite control, and we are back on the run. It is good to have brought him down, but would the Menites just done it for us. We will never know. Now back to our narrative.
Once I recounted the false narrative to Lazar, staring Sodaving in the eye the whole time, he knew he was done. He broke free, a pair of followers running with him, and vanished into the crowed. Our tracker Von, however, was able to watch the crowd and follow him. We pursued. He lead us into the sewers where we had first encountered him after a lengthy chase. When we finally caught up to him and his two lackeys, a crazy monster broke out of the water in ambush obviously allied with Sodaving. Sor and Lefty, his Laborjack armed with a drill and a mining pick, took the brunt of the Hunter’s wrath, with Von and Ivan, the Explorer and Doomreaver, up front as they were the fastest, drawing Sodavings attention. I was stuck in the middle. That was perfect, however, as I am an intellectual archetype character with command 6, meaning that I give +1 to hit and damage to all allies within 6″ of me.
The battle took place both sides of a raging sewage channel, and the bridge over top of it. Sodaving strode in first, laying huge amounts of damage into Ivan, and slapping Von as well. Ivan Returned a blow, but Von was stymied, having to shoot into melee while being in melee himself. The -8 that created was more than could be overcome, even for him. Sor and Lefty struck back at the Hunter and mauled him pretty severely: enough that he took a bit of refuge in the raging sewage in order to not be attacked by the duo again. Sodaving, having enough of Ivan’s sharpened door and really having it out for Hogan used his acrobatic skills, which were impressive for a terrifying murdering machine decked out in mechanica armor with huge axes, to roll between Ivan and Von. He looked me in the eyes, and their icy looks told me he was going to end me. He connected on his first hit and Ivan ate the attack for me, his only friend. He was unable to protect me from his second attack, and I dropped to three HP. The last attack, thankfully, missed and I dodged backward out of reach where I could spike an acid grenade on his face. However, I had to survive the round to do it, and Sodaving looked just fine at that point.
Until Lefty. Sor roared out to Lefty to charge Sodaving, and the ever faithful laborjack surged into combat with the deadly Kayazy prince. Though we all had had problems hitting him Lefty had death in his cortex, connecting with a grand overhand swing. His pick bit deep into Sodavings back and armor,who howled in pain as Lefty yanked the pick out with inhuman strength, ripping apart both mechanical apparatus and human muscle. The pain was obvious in his eyes, and though he was harmed, he looked far from dead.
When it got around to my turn, I dropped an acid bomb onto Sodaving. I used the scatter rules and attacked with a pow 12 to all in the area of the grenade, feeling I needed to do supreme damage to actually kill the villain, and not expecting my dice to be good enough to hit. Instead, after suffering from the attention of Ivan and the gentle caress of Lefty, the simple damage of the alchemical acid was enough to put him in the ground. He staggered over to the edge of the waterway, where a giant sewergator, lurking for a chance at a lucky meal, sprung out and ended him forever. The remaining minions and the Hunter were easily dispatched by my compatriots, and we limped out of the sewer to the chorus of the Menite faithful outside the walls. the Khadorans were about to be expelled. The Northern Crusade had arrived.